Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Generally, when I make biscotti, they fail. Usually I would attribute this to a skill set I haven't learned yet, or inferior ingredients, or lack of attention, but in this case it's just not true, something is wrong with biscotti.

How do I know this? Because I am great at making a dessert that is almost identical in every way to biscotti, my great-grandmother's mandelbrot. Here's where Dorie is genius. She's somehow managed to tweak the recipe for the Lenox Almond Biscotti pictured above so that it no longer differs from my great-grandmother's mandelbrot recipe in any meaningful way. Sure, Dorie uses butter instead of oil, and includes cornmeal for crunch, but in all other ways these 'biscotti' are obviously made from my family recipe.

Do I have a problem with this? No. I think mandelbrot is about as good as it gets, easy and delicious and long-keeping. However, I do have a problem with my parents' oven, which is on a spree of burning the bottoms off any innocent food attempting to cook in it. So we had burned 'biscotti.' No problem, still delicious. My mother did mention several times that she could taste the butter, and wasn't sure she liked it that way. I did like the cornmeal, though, and think I'll retain that trick.

Just to show that I'm not heartless and hating when it comes to biscotti, I'll include another family's recipe for biscotti, one which I hope to make very soon, after the jump.